The United States has the strongest laws for freedom of speech. You can't get arrested and face years of criminal legal trials, ending in an £800 fine for making a joke with your dog in America. Police won't show up at your house for Facebook posts like they do in Aussiestan. American courts probably won't take your infant away from you and force a medical procedure on it like in Kiwistan just because you wanted to use your own blood donors for the operation.
It's been degrading in the US too. Xitter is not at all a free speech platform and that technocrat says whatever he has to for popularity until he can chip your brain. Cutting a few million in wasteful government spending doesn't make up for how he loves China and deeply desires their level of autocracy.
America's laws have somehow held in-spite of presidents that seek to crush it (yes, both of them, both sides. They're the same. Stop believing the headlines and read the damn articles). Although defamation law has been weaponized to neuter some forms of speech and reporting.
There is an internal push by the CIA in America to further destabilize it and cause radical elements in the fake-left and fake-right to call for more authoritarianism. It's not a great nation, but sadly it is the last bastion of true liberty .. and it's eroding every day from every side.
In 20 years there might not be anywhere to flee to. Fight for your country. They can't put every British person in prison if everyone decided to tell the truth.
> American courts probably won't take your infant away from you and force a medical procedure on it like in Kiwistan just because you wanted to use your own blood donors for the operation.
Whenever someone writes "just" in a case like this I can tell there's a complicated, ugly legal case that's being grossly misrepresented, and quite possibly one where no responsible journalist is reporting because of child privacy issues/laws.
The problem with both British and American surveillance state authoritarianism is it's hugely popular with the public when used against the ""wrong"" people. You might have "free speech" (subject to qualifications such as Comstock and their modern day equivalents) but you're much, much less likely to be shot and killed by the police - or a random stranger - in the UK.
> Whenever someone writes "just" in a case like this I can tell there's a complicated, ugly legal case that's being grossly misrepresented, and quite possibly one where no responsible journalist is reporting because of child privacy issues/laws.
No. No. No. It's really not. The parents were fully willing to give the infant surgery. They wanted their own blood donors. You can watch the video of the police taking the baby from the parents. It's horrific. It's authoritarian. There is zero justification at all. You didn't even look it up did you, because if you had bothered, you know what the "controversial" part is. You didn't mention it. I won't mention it here, because it's verboten on HN to criticism certain global events.
I guess you're right there, but they don't have free speech at all in the UK, so this is a step even further into the new era of technocratic authoritarianism. It's about free speech AND illegal warrant-less searches.
Dubai, even as an international hub where you may be able to get by with English — لا تضيع وقتك باستخدام دولينجو لتعلم اللغة العربية، لقد حاولت خلال الوباء وما زلت لا أعرف الأبجدية — is much more authoritarian than the UK. Similar for Singapore.
If you're monolingual, and privacy is your concern, then the US is an improvement over Australia.
But also consider Canada and Ireland.
Ireland isn't in Five Eyes, Canada is, but also Canada is slightly further away from the madness of Trump etc. than any company still inside the USA.
I'm not even sure what's going to happen with the US federal government given that DOGE cannot meet its stated goals even by deleting all discretionary-budget federal agencies like the NSA, CIA, FBI, all branches of the armed forces, etc. but on the other hand the private sector is busy doing a huge volume of spying anyway in the name of selling adverts… chaos is impossible to predict, and you should want to predict things at least a few years out if you're going to the trouble of relocating.
That's true, and I suspect Ireland does not do as much surveillance as many other countries, but if I recall correctly, it does have a passphrase-or-prison law like the UK. I also get the sense that in a number of cases, it tends to view its laws as suggestions, for example, with the autism dossiers scandal [1], and in some sense, gets away with it in the way that a small country can. To me, it feels like a country where you don't need to worry about organized, systemic surveillance abuses, but do need to worry about departments or even individual employees who decide that they just don't like you.
Belgium's EU presidency was pushing for Chat Control (on-device scanning of all your messages). Hungary took over and was pushing for the same. Poland took over and is proposing changes. Denmark has been in favor of the original proposal and is taking over in July 2025.
As a complete novice in life in everything that is not Tech, I rely on a lot of how-to videos on YouTube from small unknown creators. Likes and Dislikes ratio is one of the key filter to weed out less helpful or outright misinformed videos. This may be shrewd move for YouTube to boost engagement but at the greater cost of utility and UX. Very disappointing.
I get the sentiment for live performance, but in your own home, I can not relate to this. Vast majority of people in credits are doing a job and getting paid for it, just like any other profession or trade.
We don't pay "respect" to delivery drivers, or to designers and engineers who brings us our gadgets and services in same way. Why should I spend my time and attention on credit rolls? It's not like anyone noticing it.
Perhaps I should have said it's disrespectful of me, the audience member. It should be my decision whether to watch to the end or not.
I really enjoy movie watching. I use the credits to contemplate what I just watched. Sometimes to see who played specific roles, or what music was in the film, or the locations. So yes, I do watch the credits.
I know most people don't. But that decision should be mine or yours.
You don't tip? Tips are showing your respect for deliveries. Also, most gadgets I've seen have a screen that can be viewed with credits in them, as well as most software. Video games have credits too. Books have credits too, right there on the cover and is probably what grabs your attention more than the title.
No, I hardly ever tip my delivery drivers. Tip is not expected for normal service here, unlike USA. If someone goes above and beyond, you can tip but there is no obligation. We have minimum wage system and most in my area are paid above that.
Most popular gadgets with screens, smartphones, doesn’t have credits, not the most popular apps on App Store apart from couple of words “From Facebook”, “By Google” etc. It’s not considered “incredibly disrespectful” to not read credits in apps or acknowledgments in books that have it listed. It’s a personal preference to read or skip them. I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make.
Yes, when was the last time you actually saw the credits on those devices? Like who is the lead designer of your phone? Who is the lead programmer of the last game you played?
Pre-1980s, all credits for feature films were at the beginning of the film. When the film was over, a nice "The End" card would come up, and then fade to black. That was it. Somewhere in the 80s it flipped to just above the line credits at the beginning of the film, and then full credits at the end. As time goes on, it seems like fewer people care about the people making the thing than just using up the labor of the creators with little appreciation.
This can be said of all interviews, not just tech. It’s hard for great many people to put themselves out there. I mean interview itself is a performance, isn’t it?
Having said that communication and interpersonal skills are big part of most jobs even in tech. We hardly develop software in isolation these days.
I don’t know about other industries, but in Tech there are some really inexperienced interviewers out there, who’re impulsive and lacks discipline in conducting objective and meaningful assessment.
If I recall correctly you either have to mail in your passport with application form and photos or you can go to post office where they can verify ID for your fist provisional license.
One of the step to get full license is to take theory test in person at test centre. They check your address and verify ID again at this stage.
We have small driving test centres in most areas. You prebook the slot and turn up. They’re fairly punctual.
For me 13” Retina MBP circa 2013 was the pinnacle of form factor, price, & performance. Unfortunately they went out of support and employer forced us to upgrade with 15” Touch MBP. I don’t have any complaints about keyboard, guess I’m just lucky in that regards.
But new MacOS and hardware are frighteningly unstable. I have observed roughly 1 in 5 times that it’ll crash outright with blank screen when attached to external display. Resetting PRAM, & SMC work for a couple of days and then back to same behaviour. Apple Store had a quick look but stupid thing didn’t crash so they blamed it on faulty cables at work and home. How can a cable can cause it to crash even after disconnected?
Unless they up their game I’ll never spend my own money on another Mac.
